How Niels from dear digital has grown as a leader and upgraded his organization with Grow With The Flow
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“Thanks to the collaboration with Alexander I have seen myself and my organisation change in ways I didn’t really know were possible so I’m very grateful and looking forward to the next steps in the collab!”
The approach
How was the experience with our 1:1 track? Did it align with your expectations and needs?
“Yes, absolutely! It of course evolves a bit. In the beginning, there was a lot of context and information that Alexander still needed to teach me, on how he thinks and how different frameworks work. We really started with the basics. There was a lot of information sharing on the broader things. Then we moved it into actual road maps, getting things done, and throughout, I could always discuss certain topics that were most important to me, or very specific scenarios on how to practically approach things and implement them.
We interviewed Niels Desot, co-founder & CEO at dear digital, about his experience with Grow With The Flow. Watch the video or read the full interview below.
About dear digital
Can you tell us about your company, your role, and what motivated you to start or join this business?
“My name is Niels, I’m CEO and co-founder of dear digital that we founded about 4 years ago. We implement Shopify and Odoo.
What motivated me to start this business and what still motivates me today is to build an organization and build teams around expertise.”
What is the core mission and vision of your company? What drives you and your team every day?
“What really drives us is impacting people through what we do and through the technologies that we use.
For us, these technologies are means to impact people and organizations to help them develop into what they want to become and to become their best selves both on the employee side and also on the client side.”
The challenge
What were the key challenges you were facing at the moment you met Alexander?
“In 1,5 year, we grew from an organization of around 10-12 people to an organization of 45 people.
And guess what, that’s not the same organization, you need a different type of leadership, but also a different way of making decisions, structuring the company, etc. and that is something I had no previous experience with.
I came into contact with Alexander and I immediately felt that he was a person that could help me in this transition. Now, one year later, I’m actually quite happy with what we’ve been able to do together.”
How did you go about searching for external support, and what were your top priorities and criteria?
“What were the main priorities? Somebody who understood me, understood the organization and had a way of getting me and the organization to where we wanted to go.
I came into contact with multiple people that could help me and amongst them Alexander, where I had the best connection with to actually help me solve the problem.”
What were the primary goals you set out to achieve with our help?
“The goal is to get the organization ready in terms of structure, in terms of culture, how decisions are made, how people are enabled and how they work in this organization.
We have a roadmap of about 15 months that we wanted to get through and we’re still quite on track to achieve that.”
Alexander (Grow With The Flow) and Niels (dear digital)
I’m very happy with the one-on-one track and how it’s actually going.”
How are you currently using our CEO Playbook? What are the key features or aspects that stand out to you?
“The CEO Playbook is something unique. It’s something that has so much content, so much practical information, but also so much context to actually get people to buy into what we’re trying to do.
In the beginning of the track, there was a lot of trying to get to and trying to understand. Now, we moved into the actual road maps that we’re trying to complete and the CEO Playbook offers ‘just-in-time’ information, let’s say, on specific topics that I want to implement or want to change.
I first go to the CEO Playbook to see if there is something on that specific topic and then I use it to get my team the right context, the right information, and often already have a template to implement what we want to achieve as well.”
The results
How has the advice of GWTF been integrated into your daily operations, and what difference has it made for your team?
“Well, the impact, we feel it every day.
I think the moment we started working together, we were very much still a ‘founder-led’ company - it’s maybe the wrong wording - but we were really handling and controlling most of it. It was actually a process to let go of most of the control and enable people to actually take ownership about a lot more things and give them more space to speak up and to grow more into the organization. So the organization is less ‘founder-led’ and more ‘team-led’ at this point. Though I’m not saying that we’re fully there yet.
We’re taking big steps and for me, the biggest difference is not trying to control or do everything myself, but trusting and enabling people to actually flourish. Something that I had to learn for a while and hope I’m doing better now.”
How has working with us impacted your personal job satisfaction as founder and CEO?
“I went on holiday a month ago for two weeks, and I actually didn’t do anything and I came back and everything was still running fine. I think that’s a very big achievement. A year ago, it was possible to take a holiday, but the company wouldn’t be in the same situation afterwards. So that’s the biggest accomplishment. For the rest, the impact is very incremental and it’s hard to put your finger on it exactly.
It’s how I feel, and the freedom I feel in terms of how we can operate compared to a year ago.”
How has working with GWTF changed your approach and philosophy to business, leadership and organization?
“I come from a start-up culture where in the early stages, often you don’t have the time and money to actually hear everybody out. You need to push through a lot of decisions, test a lot of stuff and move forward quite fast. I think I held on to this a bit too long. When the organization was bigger, I didn’t really know how to change that and that was the only mode of operating I knew.
Alexander helped me to change that and to enable the organization to take care of itself, and for me, to take up the role (as CEO) and do the things that are most useful, impactful, etc. for me and the organization.”
Wrapping up
Who would you recommend to work with GWTF?
“The moment is right when the organization is getting a bit bigger and you as a founder/CEO cannot really handle everything yourself anymore. You feel that there needs to be a switch to enable the teams, to enable the organization to take care of itself, and to make sure you don’t have to control everything anymore. Then it might be a good choice to work with Alexander and with Grow With The Flow.”
What’s next for you and the company? What are your plans and ambitions?
“We took a big step this year, with our first acquisition. We still have some time and some work to integrate everything well. The next steps then are… First, the ambition is to get the most out of the two tools that we really believe in (Shopify and Odoo) and we need to take the next step into really achieving that. What exactly that will be is still something to figure out for ourselves as well.”
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